www.zoomata.com staff What could possibly ruin the love affair between Italians and pizza?

Money.

The faltering Italian economy — more or less stagnant since 2002 — and relentless price hikes with the arrival of the euro have made many in the Bel Paese forgo eating out.

And because even the most gifted mamma is unlikely to have the wood-burning oven necessary to make a proper pizza, it is the one dish Italians gladly eat outside the home.

Restaurant owners have struck up a “pizza pact” (patto della pizza) hoping to get cash-strapped Italians out and eating the national dish again, offering pizza and a beer or soft drink for 7 euro ($8.39).
The pizza crisis and the idea of a pact was first discussed on popular talk show Porta a Porta, a late-night program generally dedicated more to burning political issues than hot pies. Retailers’ body Confcommercio took up the idea and over 200 restaurants throughout Italy have signed the pact, valid to the end of 2005, so far.

It may be a case of too little, too late.

“Pizzeria owners are crazy if they think this will fill the restaurants after they’ve jacked up prices over the last few years, ” Rik Sentenza wrote in a letter to daily Metro. “Why don’t they give us coupons, like war-time rations for bread, since none of us can afford to eat out anymore? This isn’t going to solve the problem.”
Sentenza, like many readers who wrote into the paper, remembers a few years back when a pizza cost ?4.000 to? 6.000 lire or about 2-3 euro.

The profit on the average pizza is already 490%, reminds Vincenzo Donvito, president of consumer group ADUC, who called the initiative “obscene.”

Four out of the just seven pizzerias supporting the pizza pact in Milan called by zoomata did not know whether the offer was valid just one day a week or every day or on which day it was offered.

Roberto, owner of pizzeria Summer in Milan, who has not signed the pizza pact told us: “They didn’t publicize it very well, I first read about it from the newspaper.”

When asked whether he would be signing up any time soon he said, “We’re talking a 1.50 discount on our normal prices, I’ll throw in an espresso or grappa if people ask for the pizza pact. How’s that?”

Related resources:
Pizza Napoletana!
A love letter to the true Italian pizza from chef Pamela Sheldon Johns

ilpattodellapizza.it
Official site for the pizza pact

The grape harvest in Italy this year, said to be a small but good vintage, may wilt on the vine because no one wants to do the work.

Sicilian mayor Calogero Trupiano predicts empty vineyards because of a labor shortage — a serious threaten to the Italian wine industry, accountable for more than 20 percent of worldwide wine production.

Granted, grape harvesting is no picnic. Workers rise at dawn to avoid the worst of the late-summer heat and spend a long day bending over vines with pruning shears and hauling heavy, grape-laden baskets for processing.

“I did it once, thinking it was an easy way to pick up extra money,” Marco Paoletti told zoomata. “Never again. It was grueling work. There were ten-hour days with only a break for bread and cheese, you need serious stamina.”

In recent years, fewer Italians have been willing or interested in the job and the immigrant labor force has stepped in where locals bowed out: no more, says the mayor. Trupiano fears the grapes may turn sour on the vine because despite quotas that help bring in foreign workers for field work, not even they are willing to spend 45 days in the fields to earn total wages of around 2,000EUR.

Italians are drinking less wine than ever — about half as much as they did in the 1950s — raising concern that a symbol of the country may go by the wayside. In an effort to raise an interest in dying traditions, last year a town near Naples held three days of back-to-basics lessons on the fall harvest, including a grape-stomping workshop for kids.?1999-2004 zoomata.com
This is an original news story. Play nice. Please use contact form for reprint/reuse info.

Related resources:
Ready to give grape picking a try? Get hooked up with the Italian branch of Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WOOF)….
www.wwoof.it